


honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago

by attonitos_gloria



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship/Love, Insomnia, Post-War, Short One Shot, internalized ableism, that's all this is honestly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-06-04 16:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15151454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attonitos_gloria/pseuds/attonitos_gloria
Summary: [A series of unrelated drabbles and one-shots about a sleep-deprived OTP.]





	1. if I'm a body, you're a blanket on me

**Author's Note:**

> All rights to Mr. Martin/HBO.

"What are you doing?"

Tyrion lifts his eyes and sees his wife, standing with one raised eyebrow, a few steps away. She woke up quietly enough to startle him; he is not particularly good at this, so the needle punches his index-finger and the pain is fast and sharp. The blood comes out in one single drop.

"Damn, girl. Where are your courtesies when one needs them?", he mutters, forgetting his own while putting said finger inside his mouth.

"I am sorry", she is quick to say, still the perfect lady she has always been – and yet, sometimes, the tension in her shoulders eases away, when they are alone. Tyrion tries not to make too much of this observation. "Are you—"

"Well, yes", he interrupts, as if avoiding the word would make it less embarrassing, and resumes his work. "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping? What happened?"

"The same as always, my lord", she shrugs and comes closer, kneeling in front of his chair. She has nightmares frequently. Once in a while they can bring her to tears; most nights she merely shakes him off: _Tyrion, wake up. I can't sleep. Tell me a story._ He never complaints; he, too, has bad dreams, in which case she is the one to wake him up as well. That pretty much sums up their marriage: they have insomnia together. "I didn't know you could sew".

"You see, my dear wife, playing with swords wasn't exactly an option for me", he retorts in his grumpy mood. (It is not completely true; Jaime would play with him.) "I had plenty of free time".

"I imagined you were the type to occupy yourself with books, and not with needlework", she says, amused, and touches his kneecap.

She is right. He didn't practice as much as a child than as a grown man, but he never talks about his time in Essos, and she never talks about her time in the Vale. When he looks up to face her again, Sansa is not smiling – she is actually suppressing a smile, lower lip between her teeth, her blue eyes shining bright, illuminated by the fire.

The life in them scares him with that same old fear he will fall for her and be irreparably broken by the end of the process.

"Some of us have to make do", he spits, feeling his cheeks burning.

"I'm not mocking you", the girl explains, still gentle and immune to the acid in his voice, her hand motionless over his leg. "I'm just... Surprised". And then her smile opens wider. "You _sew!_ " It turns into a chuckle, sweet and brief, and not mocking at all. "You should have told me, my lord. What are you working on?"

"I'm just mending a rip". And before she can ask why he had not ordered a maid to do it, or herself: "I like it. It calms me down", he confesses, as if the words were being extracted from his lips.

She studies his face for a moment, something that could very well be fondness sparking in her winter eyes – and then gets up, offering him a hand.

"Are you done? I'm afraid you have spoiled me. I won't be able to go back to sleep alone".

He ignores the warm inside his chest and puts the material aside, even if he's not finished yet, to hold her hand (there are other ways to pacify his own troubled heart). They lie down side by side on the mattress, arms barely touching, facing the ceiling.

"My sister has a sword called Needle", she says, simply.

This is how they are rebuilding each other's past life: piece by piece of mundane, useless information casually placed in conversations over supper, during their daily walks in the gardens or nights plagued by insomnia. _I'm a very patient teacher; I actually taught Bran to read before Maester Luwin. Jaime gave me one of those toys on my fourth name-day, but I broke it a week later. Myrcella had a dress like this, but it was green, if I remember it well. Oh, do you like this book? It was one of Rickon's favorites._ The silence that follows is the closest to the gods he will ever get: this is who she is. There's something solemn about it, about the fact she is choosing to share her old life with him. She doesn't need to. He receives each memory as a gift. It is _sacred ground_ ; it demands to be respected.

"Really? It is an unusual name for a sword", he finally answers.

"I know. Jon gave it to her. We were practicing needlework that day, if I'm not wrong. She hated it". Sansa rarely talks about Arya; he never asked why. He listens to the years in her voice: old scars, healed scars. It has been like that for a while, now. He wonders how she accomplished it; his wounds are always opening again, bleeding and messing everything up. "I'm just saying— maybe everyone has to make do, somehow? She is very good, though".

He smiles against his will and nods. "Maybe. But I'm sure I'm not comparably skilled with threads and real needles". She chuckles briefly, adorably. A pause, and then – "thank you, Sansa". He doesn't know yet for what, precisely, he is grateful; maybe for another little piece of her childhood to compose the big picture, maybe for her sweetness, or maybe just because she is... Here, always here.

She doesn't seem to mind the vagueness of his words: "Good night, my lord". He can hear the smile in her voice, and imagines it: the smallest curve tugging the corner of her lips. She turns her back on him, as usual, and he does the same; but her mere presence only inches away is, oddly, enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> · I added the fact Tyrion practiced needlework in his childhood, because of Reasons.  
> · The main title comes from "From Eden", by Hozier (part of the Official And Ultimate Sansa/Tyrion Playlist), and the chapter's title comes from "If I'm", by Sea Oleena.


	2. if you dare, come a little closer (1)

 

One night, Tyrion wakes up and finds Sansa staring at him. Her hands are intertwined under her chin, close to her body, fingers tangling and untangling nervously. She breathes heavily.

It takes him a few seconds to understand that her hands probably had been on his face – there's a memory of her touch burning his scars, a hint of discovery in her glimmering eyes. He wonders, in the odd clarity of the moment, if this is the first time.

And she does not apologize. She does not explain herself. She doesn't speak anything, and neither does he. She merely turns her back on him, and in silence, they fall back to sleep.

In the morning, he will remember he felt, most of all, grateful (his wife didn't look scared at all when he opened his mismatched eyes).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this is a open project now? About insomnia? I don't even know. The chapter's title comes from "Stay", by Rihanna.


	3. I lie still, and wonder if I ever felt the pain (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As LovelyMonster suggested: _Like, the next time he wakes up to her touching his scars is two weeks later, and he opens his eyes and she gives him that same little Mona Lisa smile that makes her look like a fucking ivory angel, her eyes large and dark in the weak predawn, and he very carefully reaches forward the few inches it's necessary to do so and takes her wrist and places her hand back on his face and closes his eyes._
> 
> So. Here we are, a continuation of the last one :)

  
  
  
  
It happens again, and again, and then one more time.

Except he does not open his eyes, when it happens. If he does so, her hand will leave, and he has yet to know the texture of her skin, the temperature of it, the little fidgets in her fingers. If he is lucky to wake up, he keeps his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, drilling his lungs to breathe evenly.

In the first week, he keeps wondering if she knows. Sometimes it is hard to fake, like when she touched his lip where it is parted in two. 

Her _nerve_...!

…

(During the day, he catches her eye, tilts his head to the side. She looks away first, courteously: not ashamed, not guilty, not embarrassed, not anything.)

…

It is only by the end of the second week that he decides to be the one who surrenders; he had just woken up when her hand retrieves, and he barely felt anything. Maybe she had touched him more lightly this night, enough to not wake him up from his normally superficial sleep. He opens his eyes, slowly. It is almost morning, and the winter light is a faint, yellowish-gray thing through the thin layer of the curtains hanging in the windows of their chambers. Her eyes are something less Tully-blue in the dimness of the room, darker, sharper; her face, half-shadows; her auburn hair looking almost brown. Here, she does not look away. The corners of her lips pull up in a smile that he can only interpret as-

_well, at last._

And so he reaches through the narrow space between them, trying not to divert his gaze from her eyes, and holds her dainty wrist. She holds her breath for a second and Tyrion hesitantly brings her hand closer to him again, slowly places her palm on his cheek, and closes his eyelids; lets his hand lingers on the back of hers before he lets it go, and when she exhales he _feels_ it more than listens; her hand relaxing: soft, tender, even.

"Do you ever sleep at all?", she murmurs, almost frustrated, but her skin is warm against his face. 

Tyrion chuckles. So he guessed it right.

…

One night, still dark, she lets her hand wander through his hair.

Tyrion does not try to contain the sigh, quiet and mute as it is, that escape his lips. She buries her fingers on his scalp, carefully, and slides them down, and begins again, until he feels like his bones are melting, like a block of ice being thrown into a everlasting fire.

"Your hair is so long", she says, fondly. "We should trim it, by the morrow".

He nods, and looks at her helplessly. Her eyes are a secret: they speak a language that he can't understand, never heard before.

She is a maze. He knows he is getting lost. He knows it and can't help it.

…

(He never touches her; it goes unsaid and implicit he is not allowed.)

…

Sometimes he is afraid to fall asleep. A man like him has more material for nightmares than for dreams in the recesses of his mind, and Tyrion often _fights_ sleepiness when it hits him.

But one night- and it was a normal night at the end of a remarkably bad day - Sansa is there and he is staring at the ceiling and he is tired. She probably knows, but does not say a thing as she approaches his body, lying flat on his back by her side; she turns to the side and, supporting her weight easily on her elbow, reaches out to touch his face.

Tyrion barely looks at her, merely acknowledges her presence and tries to fight his shame. Because it _works_ : reluctantly, he admits, it works. His chest doesn't feel such a troubled place to house his heart- it hardly feels friendly, either, he could never quite welcome a soul, but numb is better than the alternative. She towers over him here, as per usual, and he is trying to pretend he does not need it. He is, unsuccessfully, ignoring how much he had hoped she would come.

And when her fingers curl around his ear lobe, massaging it, and then fondle his hair like the sleepless, scared child he is, he closes his eyes, and leans into her touch, and sighs. He forgets to be self-conscious for a blessed moment and lets himself feel it-

but it is a really, really fleeting moment, because she _laughs._ Quietly. Almost a chuckle.

He cracks one eye open, and then another.

"What is so amusing?", Tyrion finally asks, voice too hard for someone who is currently beneath her.

"You look like one of Tommem's cats", she answers, simply, and just then he notices she never stopped caressing his hair. Her hand slides down to the hidden skin behind his ear, and there is no way he can give a dignified answer in this position.

"Don't push your luck, my lady", he mutters, hoarse, but sharp. "A lion is not a cat".

She half-smiles, her face barely illuminated by the candlelight around their bed. "Oh, is it not?", she wonders out loud, so wicked and so pure, and he suddenly can't stand it.

"I believe a song has been written on the subject", he snaps.

(But what is the good on that, he wonders? He is still right there, below her, looking up to stare her in the eye, unable to move away from her touch, almost begging for her not to stop. What is the use of that?)

Still she doesn't wince at his harshness. " _A lion still has claws_ ", she quotes: does not sing, quotes. In her voice it sounds less like a warning and more like a brothel song: low, belittling. "But you vowed to me you would not savage me", and just like that she tenders her voice like honey, a spring breeze, fresh, and against that, he can't arm himself. "Do you remember?"

They stare at each other in silence, and Tyrion feels in it the exact moment when things change.

He fears they won't come back to be the same. He hopes they won't come back to be the same.

"Did you believe me?", he murmurs, then. The back of her fingers brush the sides of his face, and Sansa follows them with her eyes as they slide down his neck. This time she keeps the hand there, close to his pulse.

"Not back then, no", she replies and he sees her lower lip trembling. 

Her thumb rests on his throat, so he knows she must both feel and listen when he swallows down, trying to clean his voice to ask- "and now?"

Instead of offering him an answer, she eyes him as if he were the prey, and she, the wolf hunting him down, and leans over, cupping his cheek. "We wolves have claws too, you know", she says; her hair falls over him, curtains of fire, hiding him from the world. She is all he can see.

Her eyes remain open when she kisses him and he shivers underneath her, gasping for air against her mouth. The weakest of men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to show!only readers:
> 
>  
> 
> _"One of your northmen hit me with a morningstar during the battle on the Green Fork. I escaped him by falling off my horse." His grin turned into something softer as he studied her face. "Is it grief for your lord father that makes you so sad?"_  
>  _"My father was a traitor," Sansa said at once. "And my brother and lady mother are traitors as well." That reflex she had learned quickly. "I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey."_  
>  _"No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves."_  
>  _"Lions," she whispered, without thinking. She glanced about nervously, but there was no one close enough to hear._  
>  _Lannister reached out and took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. "I am only a little lion, child, and I vow, I shall not savage you." Bowing, he said, "But now you must excuse me. I have urgent business with queen and council."_  
>  (Sansa I, A Clash Of Kings)


End file.
